Visions in the Quest for Medicine: An Interpretation of the Indian Pictographs of the Canadian Shield

Abstract

The many Indian pictographs (rock paintings) of the central Canadian Shield are a legacy of the Algonkian-speaking Indians who have resided there for at least a thou sand years. While the age of the paintings remains unclear, it is hypothesized in this paper that an interpretation of them can be gained through a study of the distinctive use of imagery and metaphors common to the enduring Algonkian world view, espe cially in the religious stories relating to the Medicine Manitou among the Cree and Ojibway, on the birchbark song scrolls of the nineteenth century Midewiwin, or Grand Medicine Society, and in contemporary interpretations of the paintings by native people in the region. These point to an interpretation of the cliff faces as the entrances to the home of the Medicine Manitou(s) with several pictograph morphs depicting the medicine, the prayers, the journeys, and the Manitous, as seen in the painters' visions in the quest for medicine.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 12 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.